Gathering Place is a new park covering 66.5 acres (26.9 ha) on Tulsa’s waterfront along the Arkansas River. It is the largest public park created with private money, funded by $400 million from the George Kaiser Family Foundation through a public/private partnership with the city of Tulsa. The park incorporates the natural landscape into its design, using the river as a central feature and incorporating the natural topography with human-made topographic elements.

Gathering Place features more than 100 unique attractions to keep visitors engaged and to encourage return visits. The design of the park maintained as many existing trees as possible while planting 5,800 new ones, along with eight acres (3.2 ha) of meadow, mimicking the native flora and providing habitats for native species. In addition to cultivated native landscapes, geothermal wells heat and cool all buildings, all the park’s lighting is LED, and the park connects to bike trails around the city. The park strives to connect a segregated community, bringing together people of all ethnicities and socioeconomic backgrounds through a variety of programming.

Gathering Place was designed with input from a diverse community throughout the process, to fulfill a longstanding need for a place where everyone can feel welcome to gather and interact. Within its first five months, the park surpassed its goal of serving 1 million visitors in its first year. This popularity, even during the fall and winter months, speaks to the strong sense of ownership that Tulsa residents feel for the park. With the endowment set up by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, Gathering Place will be a place for all Tulsans to come together for generations.

Get Weekly Updates

Related Articles

A robust public/private partnership could further enable a bike trail and pedestrian boardwalk that bridges the lingering cultural divide between the east and west sides of Austin, Texas, a ULI Advisory Services panel said in August.

Located in the heart of Center City in Philadelphia, 1800 Arch Street is a $1.5 billion, 60-story mixed-use tower that is the largest private development project in the history of Pennsylvania. An expansive lobby serves as an indoor public plaza, welcoming visitors with art installations, restaurants, a coffee bar, and outdoor seating. The lobby also provides access to a new, underground concourse, lined with shops and art, connecting commuters and visitors to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority’s Suburban Station.

Empire Stores is in a formerly vacant 19th-century warehouse on New York City’s Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass (DUMBO) waterfront. The warehouse has been a landmark on the waterfront for more than a century and has become part of the urban fabric of the neighborhood.